Choreography | Mesma Belsaré

Mesma Belsare_press 5_Greg Noir Photography.jpeg

'intense involvement...'

THE HINDU

Dance
Portfolio

Twenty-five years of choreographic practice rooted in Bharatanātyam — and pressing beneath it, toward what the body carried before any tradition claimed it.

THE HOURGLASS

Concept, Choreography, Costumes & Soundscape: Mesma Belsaré Commissioned by Kulture Kool, New Jersey

We are living through what feels like constriction — a world order under pressure, old institutions losing their hold. The Hourglass does not read this as decline. Drawing on the Indic concept of brahma-muhurta — the charged and luminous hour before dawn — the work holds our collective moment as a threshold: the narrow neck through which something new is already passing.

Five dancers trained in Bharatanātyam and Kathak carry this passage. Their classically formed bodies pressed against contemporary movement — back body, pelvic floor, the deep carnal weight that precedes any vocabulary — the gap between what their training reaches for and what this work demands of them is the dance itself.

Premiering Summer 2026 · Athens · Rimini · Glasgow · London

SIREN

Concept, Choreography, Costumes & Soundscape: Mesma Belsaré Commissioned by the American India Foundation, New England Chapter

Performers: Mesma Belsaré and Ramya Shankaran

SIREN-Mesma Belsare at Intersections MIT

Mesma Belsare and Ramya Shankaran in SIREN.jpg

Four scenes — displacement, separation, loss, war — held inside a contemporary movement vocabulary rooted in Indian classical technique. Drawn from poetry by Tagore, Burns, Neale, and Kipling; music by Ravel, Keshavan, Bhavani Shankar, and Bejjanki Krishna. The duet refuses the comfortable distance of witness.

"Simply outstanding, world class."

SACRED GEOMETRIES

2023 · Co-choreographed and performed by Mesma Belsaré and Peter Rockford Espiritu Premiered at the P'AI Foundation, Honolulu, Hawai'i

Created during Belsaré's Dance/USA 2023 Fellowship with Native Hawaiian choreographer Peter Rockford Espiritu. Three days, two sacred sites — Keaīwa Heiau and Kūkaniloko.

The methodology: that indigenous knowledge systems hold a geometry that trained bodies already recognize.

Carmine Bees

Concept, Design, Mask & Choreography: Mesma Belsaré

Commissioned by the Indo American Arts Council (IAAC), NYC

Mesma Belsare in Carmine Bees- a dance on Buddhist Goddess Kurukulla

After Kurukulla: the Buddhist Goddess who bewitches without apology.

A deconstruction of classical idioms at the junction of verse, iconography, gender, and desire.

SHILPA NATANAM: THE DANCING SCULPTURES · 2010–2025 In collaboration with Dr. Maya Kulkarni

A fifteen-year body of work. Classical Indian sculptural forms — Chola, Mathura, Gandhara — alongside the Ajanta cave paintings are not reference points here. They are the choreographic source. The New York Times described the work as "a virtuoso number" (2018).

Repertory includes: Pāda Bhedāh · Mohini · Krishnakaranāmritam · Ardhanārīśwara · Narasimha · Jatayu · Medea's Passion · Plato's Allegory of the Cave · Kundalini · Kavacham · Chinnamastā

Published in Ballet Review: The Premier Dance Journal (2019). Presented at Battery Dance Festival, New York Public Library, La MaMa, Atlas Performing Arts Center, India International Center (Delhi), Kalakshetra Foundation (Chennai), New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, and internationally.

THE VERMIN'S WILL · 2016 Concept, Choreography & Costume: Mesma Belsaré · Consultants: Dr. Maya Kulkarni, Dr. Anita Ratnam & Dr. Robert Perinbanayagam ·

Drawn from the Śaiva Siddhāntam in Mannikavāsagār's Śiva Purānam and Jung's studies of the human archetype. An undefined being moves through the forms of tree, bird, and snake — held in the gravity of memory and attachment — until Grace arrives not as resolution but as dissolution.

EARLIER WORKS

Zan: Women in the Shahnameh (2010) · Museum of Fine Arts, Boston · Three women from Firdowsi's Persian epic: Shahnameh · AKSHAH (2010) · Movement stripped of the face; a shift from visible expression to pure presence · En-twined · The Ardhanarishwara as literary and musical motif · Unquiet Epics · After M.F. Husain's Mahabharata paintings · Fire to Ice (2004) · MassArt · Masters thesis; multimedia with video, sculpture, puppetry, live musicians Shilpa Nrityam (2003) · MassArt · First performance-based capstone in the institution's history

Performed (not authored):

Chaurapanchasikha | 50cantos (1998-2010)· Concept and Research: Padmashri Geeta Chandran

UMA (2006–2008) · Choreography: Hari Krishnan · Lincoln Center, Harbourfront Centre, Lincoln Theatre

One Fifth (2005) · Collaboration with Hari Krishnan · Wesleyan University